Education Commons^™

Status Of Diagnosis Of Childhood Depression, Kay L. Erland

Graduate Research Papers

Affective disorders in children were not recognized by professional clinicians until the beginning of the twentieth century. It was 1960 before a major textbook of psychiatry included a chapter on childhood depression (Cytryn & McKnew, 1979). To many, the idea of a child being depressed is contrary to images of childhood as a happy, carefree time (Lasko, 1986). Yet, children do show unhappy feelings in many different ways as they mature from infancy to adolescence (Epanchin, 1987). It has been estimated that 20% of the school-age population have some symptoms of depression at some time (Epstein & Cullinan, 1986).